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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152696">Heaven</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rovelae/pseuds/Rovelae'>Rovelae</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Classic nightmare Hurt/Comfort, Exactly what you're expecting, Fluff without plot/Fluff what plot, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-Game, virtual reality au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:33:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rovelae/pseuds/Rovelae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kokichi clutched onto him with all the strength his shaking hands could muster. “Don’t go, Shuichi," he sobbed. "I don’t want to die."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ouma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Quality Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heaven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mint-Pie">Mint-Pie</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Mint-Pie, who wanted a happy ending for a change ;P</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kokichi sat bolt upright with a choked cry, reaching in vain for the shrinking sliver of light between two slabs of metal. He tasted blood and felt the white-hot sting of an arrow hit his back, and his hand ached from writing cramped lines in the notebook—or from writing <em>trustworthy </em>on a whiteboard? The monitors blared a panicked death song and he was on the ground in the hangar choking on the smell of poison and metal and regret—</p><p>
  <em>Shuichi!</em>
</p><p>His wild gaze locked on the sleeping form beside him and his heart clenched as a wave of longing and horrible, horrible loneliness slammed into him and he didn’t want to go, didn’t want to die—</p><p>His trembling hands brushed against Shuichi’s face, cupping his cheeks, and sleepy eyes fluttered open to look at him, and Kokichi had only ever wanted to make him smile, <em>why did he have to leave?</em></p><p>“Koki—mmh…?”</p><p>Kokichi’s tears fell against Shuichi’s skin as he kissed him <em>desperately,</em> with the agony of knowing it would never be enough of a goodbye, wishing with everything in his soul that things could be different. When he pulled away to gasp for air, Shuichi looked slightly dazed—Shuichi looked <em>beautiful</em> and <em>perfect</em> and Kokichi <em>just wanted to be with him—</em></p><p><em>“I love you,”</em> he <em>sobbed,</em> and kissed him again, because any second now the machine was going to kill him again and Shuichi would disappear and he’d never see him again ever ever EVER—</p><p>One of Shuichi’s hands circled around his waist, and the other moved to the back of his head, pulling him gently away. “K-Kokichi, hey, what’s wrong?”</p><p>“Don’t go,” Kokichi cried. “Don’t leave me, Shuichi, I don’t want to be alone—”</p><p>“Whoa, hold on.” Shuichi brushed a tear away with his thumb. “Kokichi, look at me. I’m right here, it’s okay.”</p><p>He shook his head frantically. “Never, it’ll never be okay—”</p><p>“Shh, shh, shh…. Come here, I’ve got you.”</p><p>He was moving—<em>leaving!</em> Kokichi’s brain screamed—and Kokichi clutched onto him with all the strength his shaking hands could muster. <em>“NO!</em> Don’t go, Shuichi, I don’t want to die—I love you! I love you, Shuichi, <em>please—”</em></p><p>“Breathe, Kokichi, breathe with me,” Shuichi murmured into his ear, arms enfolding him tightly, warm and protective against the biting cold of the metal press, soothing the dizzying agony of the poison in his blood. “You’re hyperventilating. Can you take a deep breath?”</p><p>It took Kokichi several tries, but he managed a ragged gasp. “Don’t leave,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me—”</p><p>“I’m not leaving, Kokichi, I’m here.”</p><p>He felt so solid, so <em>real,</em> nothing like the pictures flashing behind Kokichi’s eyes, or the hum of machinery closing in on him, or the phantom pain of the arrows and the <em>talk, you pathetic rat, or I’ll shoot you again—</em></p><p>“Keep breathing, okay? You’re safe, I promise.” Shuichi stroked his hair and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. “Do you remember where we are, Kokichi?”</p><p>In the machine. In the courtroom. In the hospital. The VR capsule. The hangar again.</p><p>“We’re at home, remember? No one’s going to hurt you. Nothing’s going to get us.”</p><p>Kokichi pressed closer against him, muffling his cries in Shuichi’s shirt, holding onto that sweet, soft voice as warm hands rubbed circles into his back. Shuichi was here, Shuichi would save him—Shuichi <em>always</em> saved him.</p><p>“That’s it, you’re doing great. You had a nightmare, okay? All those bad things, they weren’t real.”</p><p><em>It’s not real.</em> That would explain why he didn’t feel hot blood seeping into his clothes, why Shuichi’s words weren’t being drowned out by the all-consuming machine-noise, why he couldn’t feel his skeleton shuddering and snapping under the <em>PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE—</em></p><p>It wasn’t real, he’d heard them say when they pulled him out of the capsule. It wasn’t real, they’d tried to tell him past his incoherent screams, holding him against the hospital bed and pricking him with needles that made his thoughts dissolve. It wasn’t real, <em>you’re</em> not real, and nothing <em>mattered—</em></p><p>“Hey.” Shuichi held his face so gently, so tenderly. “Are you still with me? Do you remember where we are?”</p><p>Remember…? Hadn’t Shuichi mentioned that, before?</p><p>“The … h-house,” he breathed, and a tiny, reassuring smile flickered across Shuichi’s lips.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s right. We’re safe at home. Try to focus on me, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”</p><p>Shuichi was here. Shuichi would make all the bad feelings go away.</p><p>Kokichi closed his eyes, resting his head against his chest, and Shuichi’s steady heartbeat slowly replaced the sound of the machines ringing in his ears. One of Shuichi’s hands combed lightly through his hair, and the other curved protectively over his back, as if shielding him from the poisoned arrow. Shuichi made him feel like he could <em>breathe</em> again.</p><p>“I’m here, Kokichi, I’ve got you. Can you say something so I know you can hear me?”</p><p>He swallowed and uttered a quiet “My … beloved….”</p><p>“Good, that’s good—you’re doing so well. We’ll get through this, okay?”</p><p>Kokichi believed him instinctually. <em>Trusted</em> him without question.</p><p>He felt the trembling in his limbs subside, slowly but surely, and the panic constricting his throat eased. The sounds and smells and fragments of memory faded away into something that made more sense. Shuichi was right: he couldn’t be in the hangar if he remembered the Future Foundation taking him to the hospital, and he couldn’t be in the hospital because he remembered leaving it. So, home was the only possible answer—home, where neither of them had to be trailed by an entourage of bodyguards, where no one could corner them with a request for comment, where they were safe from the Remnants of Despair screaming for their heads.</p><p>Shuichi was here, so he was safe.</p><p>“Is it over?” Shuichi whispered to him, and Kokichi nodded slowly. Shuichi tucked Kokichi’s head under his chin and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “Do you want me to talk?”</p><p>“Just hold me,” Kokichi mumbled into his shirt. “Please.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>Shuichi pulled the blankets up around Kokichi’s shoulders, scattering feather-light kisses over the crown of his head. He traced slow patterns over his back, kneading out the tension in his muscles, his every touch giving Kokichi something else to focus on, pulling him further out of his own mind. Making everything else fade away until it was just the two of them. He was Kokichi’s entire <em>world,</em> how could one man be so perfect and selfless and patient and—</p><p>He jerked his head up, so quickly that Shuichi jumped. “Can I kiss you?” he blurted.</p><p>Shuichi blinked and nodded, and Kokichi practically lunged for him, wrapping his arms around Shuichi’s neck. Shuichi brought his hands up to cradle Kokichi’s face, breaking away for only a moment to whisper “I’m here—it’s okay, ‘Kichi,” before returning to his lips.</p><p>Kokichi felt the last quivers of despair dissolve in Shuichi’s warmth, the kiss becoming less urgent and more tender, the residual tightness in his throat finally relaxing. He let out a shuddering breath when Shuichi moved to trail kisses over his chin, his jaw, his cheek.</p><p>“Sorry,” he mumbled.</p><p>Shuichi <em>hmmed</em> a wordless question, one thumb tracing the outline of Kokichi’s lips.</p><p>“I—I woke you up,” Kokichi explained. “And I didn’t ask before, when I kissed you—”</p><p>“Are you finding reasons to be mad at yourself again?” Shuichi murmured against his ear.</p><p>Kokichi just swallowed and nuzzled into the hollow of his neck.</p><p>Shuichi rocked him slowly back and forth, hugging him tighter. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?” he asked.</p><p>The same question he always asked, no matter how many times Kokichi immediately refused. No matter how many times Kokichi had woken him up screaming. The offer was always the same, an outstretched hand from the one he trusted most.</p><p>The refusal didn’t come as easily to him this time.</p><p>“I just….” Shuichi already knew everything that had happened to him; why was it so hard to talk about how it all made him <em>feel—</em> “I-I was just….”</p><p>Shuichi waited. Shuichi always waited for him.</p><p>“I was alone,” Kokichi muttered. “So, so alone, and—and scared and hurt and I—I just—I <em>missed you.”</em></p><p>Ah. That was a bit more <em>real</em> than he’d wanted to be. He broke the tension with a forced-sounding half-laugh. “What kind of boyfriend … w-won’t even let me dream about him…?”</p><p>It sounded funnier in his head, but Shuichi at least recognized that he was trying to make a joke and exhaled a gentle laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said with an angel-soft pair of kisses to Kokichi’s eyelids, then pressed their foreheads together. “Maybe… maybe we should stay awake together instead, for a little while? So you don’t feel alone anymore.”</p><p>Kokichi hesitated, not because he didn’t know how to respond but because of the way the words went straight to his heart. He opened his eyes to Shuichi’s own looking back at him, soft with concern and sincerity. “You’re too good to me, beloved,” he whispered.</p><p>“I love you,” Shuichi said simply.</p><p>“I love you too, Shuichi.”</p><p>Soon enough, the rhythm of Shuichi’s heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest lulled Kokichi into a peaceful doze despite his best efforts to keep his eyes open. He didn’t fight the darkness of sleep when it crept back up to meet him—he just sighed and let it take him away, safe in the knowledge that this time, Shuichi’s light and warmth and <em>love</em> would follow him into his dreams.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope y’all aren’t getting bored of this kind of stuff because it seems to be all I can write lately….<br/>Concrit welcome and appreciated!<br/></p></blockquote></div></div>
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